{"id":"asbestos-diseases-compensation-act-2008","name":"Asbestos Diseases Compensation Act 2008","slug":"asbestos-diseases-compensation-act-2008","collection":"act","jurisdiction":"vic","status":"in_force","isInForce":true,"actNumber":null,"makingDate":null,"administeringDepartment":null,"currentVersion":{"id":173853,"registerId":"vic-asbestos-diseases-compensation-act-2008-current","compilationNumber":null,"startDate":"2026-04-05","status":"InForce","reasons":null,"registeredAt":null},"sections":[{"sectionNumber":"1","sectionType":"section","heading":"Asbestos Diseases Compensation Act 2008","content":"Version No. 004\n\n**Asbestos Diseases Compensation Act 2008**\n\n**No. 69 of 2008**\n\nVersion incorporating amendments as at  \n1 July 2014\n\n**table of provisions**\n\n*Section Page*\n\nPart 1—Preliminary 1\n\n1 Purposes 1\n\n2 Commencement 1\n\n3 Definitions 1\n\nPart 2—Provisional Damages for Asbestos-related Conditions 3\n\n4 Provisional damages for asbestos-related conditions 3\n\n5 Only one subsequent award of damages for asbestos-related condition permitted 4\n\n6 Regard may be had to initial award of damages 4\n\n7 Regard must be had to legal costs incurred in initial action 4\n\n8 Transitional provision 5\n\nENDNOTES 7\n\n1. General Information 7\n\n2. Table of Amendments 8\n\n3. Explanatory Details 9\n\n**Version No.** **004**\n\n**Asbestos Diseases Compensation Act 2008**\n\n**No. 69 of 2008**\n\nVersion incorporating amendments as at  \n1 July 2014\n\n**The Parliament of Victoria enacts:**\n\nPart 1—Preliminary\n\n\t1 Purposes\n\nThe main purposes of this Act are—\n\n(a) to permit the awarding of provisional damages to persons suffering from asbestos-related conditions; and\n\n(b) to amend the **Accident Compensation Act 1985** in relation to proceedings relating to asbestos-related conditions; and\n\n(c) to amend the **Wrongs Act 1958** in relation to dependants' claims for damages arising from deaths caused by dust-related conditions.\n\n\t2 Commencement\n\nThis Act comes into operation on the day after the day on which it receives the Royal Assent.\n\n\t3 Definitions\n\n(1) In this Act—\n\n***asbestos-related condition*** means—\n\n(a) asbestosis; or\n\n(b) asbestos induced carcinoma; or\n\n(c) asbestos-related pleural diseases; or\n\n(d) mesothelioma;\n\n***injured person*** means a person who is suffering from, or has suffered from, an asbestos-related condition;\n\n***subsequent action*** means an action for a subsequent award of damages for an asbestos-related condition;\n\n***subsequent award*** has the meaning set out in section 4.\n\n(2) In this Act, a condition evidenced solely by the presence of pleural plaques is not an asbestos-related condition.\n\ns. 3\n\n__________________\n\nPart 2—Provisional Damages for Asbestos-Related Conditions\n\n\t4 Provisional damages for asbestos-related conditions\n\ns. 4\n\nIf it is proved or admitted in an action for damages in respect of an asbestos-related condition that the injured person may at some time in the future develop another asbestos-related condition wholly or partly as a result of the act or omission giving rise to the cause of action, the court may—\n\n(a) award, in the first instance, damages for the asbestos-related condition assessed on the assumption that the injured person will not develop another asbestos-related condition; and\n\n(b) award damages at a future date if the injured person does develop another asbestos-related condition (the ***subsequent award***).\n\nNote to s. 4 amended by No. 67/2013 s. 649(Sch. 9 item 1).\n\n**Note**\n\nA claim by an injured person for damages for an asbestos-related condition may involve an injury to which—\n\n(a) t he **Workers Compensation Act 1958** applies, if the injury arises out of, or in the course of, the injured person's employment before 4 p.m. on 31 August 1985;\n\n(b) the **Accident Compensation Act 1985** applies, if the injury arises out of, or in the course of, or was due to the nature of, the injured person's employment on or after 4 p.m. on 31 August 1985 but before 1 July 2014;\n\n(ba) the **Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013** applies, if the injury arises out of, or in the course of, or was due to the nature of the injured person's employment on or after 1 July 2014;\n\n(c) the **Wrongs Act 1958** applies, if the injury did not arise out of or in the course of, or was not due to the nature of, the employment of the injured person.\n\n\t5 Only one subsequent award of damages for asbestos-related condition permitted\n\ns. 5\n\nIf a payment of provisional damages has been made to an injured person in respect of an asbestos-related condition only one subsequent award of damages for another asbestos-related condition can be made to that person.\n\n\t6 Regard may be had to initial award of damages\n\nIf a payment of provisional damages has been made to an injured person for an asbestos-related condition, a court may have regard to those damages when assessing damages to be awarded in a subsequent action for damages for another asbestos-related condition suffered by that person.\n\n\t7 Regard must be had to legal costs incurred in initial action\n\n(1) If a payment of provisional damages has been made to an injured person for an asbestos-related condition, a court or a registrar of a court must have regard to the legal costs incurred in respect of the action for those damages (the ***initial action***) when assessing the amount to be awarded as legal costs in a subsequent action for damages by that person for another asbestos-related condition.\n\n(2) The purpose of subsection (1) is to ensure that legal costs awarded in a subsequent action are not in respect of work undertaken for the purposes of the initial action.\n\n(3) In considering any possible duplication of legal costs, the court or registrar must have regard to the following factors—\n\n(a) any work undertaken in the initial action—\n\n(i) to identify the party or parties to be named as defendants; and\n\n(ii) to identify the circumstances of the injured person's exposure to asbestos; and\n\n(iii) in relation to the negligence or breach of duty of the party or parties to be named as defendants; and\n\n(iv) as to the relationship and causal nexus between the injured person's condition and the exposure to asbestos; and\n\n(b) any other factors that the court or registrar considers appropriate.\n\n\t8 Transitional provision\n\ns. 8\n\n(1) This Act applies to causes of action arising and actions commenced before or after the commencement of this Act.\n\n(2) However subsection (1) does not apply to an action commenced before the commencement of this Act if—\n\n(a) the hearing of the action had commenced before the commencement of this Act; or\n\n(b) damages were awarded or a settlement reached (other than for provisional damages) in that action before that commencement.\n\n__________________\n\nPt 3 (Heading and ss 9–11) repealed by No. 69/2008 s. 11.\n\n* * * * *\n\ns. 9\n\nPt 4 (Heading and ss 12–14) repealed by No. 69/2008 s. 14.\n\n* * * * *\n\n\n\nENDNOTES\n\n1. General Information\n\n\n *Minister's second reading speech—*\n\n *Legislative Assembly: 9 October 2008*\n\n *Legislative Council: 30 October 2008*\n\nEndnotes\n\nThe long title for the Bill for this Act was \"A Bill for an Act to permit the awarding of provisional damages to persons suffering from asbestos-related conditions, to amend the **Accident Compensation Act 1985** in relation to actions relating to asbestos-related conditions, to amend the **Wrongs Act 1958** in relation to dependants' claims for damages arising from deaths caused by dust-related conditions and for other purposes.\"\n\nThe **Asbestos Diseases Compensation Act 2008** was assented to on 25 November 2008 and came into operation on 26 November 2008: section 2.\n\n1. Table of Amendments\n\n\nEndnotes\n\nThis Version incorporates amendments made to the **Asbestos Diseases Compensation Act 2008** by Acts and subordinate instruments.\n\n–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––\n\n**Asbestos Diseases Compensation Act 2008, No. 69/2008**\n\n| Assent Date: | 25.11.08 |\n| --- | --- |\n| Commencement Date: | S. 11 on 25.11.09: s. 11; s. 14 on 25.11.09: s. 14 |\n| Current State: | This information relates only to the provision/s amending the **Asbestos Diseases Compensation Act 2008** |\n\n\n**Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013, No. 67/2013**\n\n| *Assent Date:* | 12.11.13 |\n| --- | --- |\n| *Commencement Date:* | S. 649(Sch. 9 item 1) on 1.7.14: s. 2(1) |\n| *Current State:* | This information relates only to the provision/s amending the **Asbestos Diseases Compensation Act 2008** |\n\n\n–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––\n\n1. Explanatory Details\n\n\nEndnotes\n\nNo entries at date of publication.","sortOrder":0}],"analysis":{"issue_detection":{"absurdities":[],"contradictions":[]},"flash_summary":{"complexity_score":4,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"The Act’s core scope remains to allow provisional damages for specified asbestos-related conditions and to regulate subsequent awards and costs (ss.1, 3–7). Amendments noted in the table of amendments (for example the 2013 update to cross-references in the note to s.4) update which workers' compensation statute is referenced for post-2014 employment periods but do not alter the Act’s central mechanics for provisional and subsequent awards (note to s.4; Table of Amendments)."},"complexity_factors":["Narrow, specific subject matter (provisional damages for asbestos-related conditions) which reduces breadth but requires careful interaction with civil damages rules (s.4)","Multiple points of judicial discretion (whether to award provisional damages, how to assess subsequent awards and legal costs) increasing case-by-case complexity (ss.4, 6–7)","Interaction with other statutes and compensation regimes that depend on dates and employment circumstances (note to s.4), creating legal classification tasks for practitioners","Evidentiary burden at the time of a subsequent action to prove causation between the same act/omission and the later condition (s.4)","Procedural complexity introduced by the requirement to avoid duplicative legal costs and assess what work has already been done (s.7(1)–(3))","A statutory cap on the number of subsequent awards (one) simplifies repeat-claim risk but requires courts to police and interpret that limit (s.5)"],"plain_english_summary":"What this law does, mechanically\n\n- The Act lets courts give \"provisional damages\" to people with certain asbestos-related diseases. That means a court can make a first award on the assumption the person will not later develop another asbestos-related condition, and then allow a later additional award (a \"subsequent award\") if the person does develop another asbestos-related condition linked to the same exposure (see s.4).\n\n- Only one subsequent award is allowed for any injured person (s.5). A court may take the initial award into account when deciding the amount of any later award (s.6).\n\n- When assessing legal costs in a later action, the court or registrar must have regard to the legal costs already incurred in the initial action and avoid awarding costs that duplicate work done originally (s.7(1)–(3)). The Act states that the purpose of that rule is to prevent double-recovery of legal costs (s.7(2)).\n\n- The Act defines which medical conditions count as \"asbestos-related conditions\" (asbestosis, asbestos induced carcinoma, asbestos-related pleural diseases, mesothelioma) and expressly excludes conditions evidenced only by pleural plaques (s.3(1)–(2)).\n\n- The Act applies to causes of action and proceedings that arose or started before or after the Act began, subject to limited transitional exceptions for matters already being heard or already resolved before commencement (s.8).\n\nWho is affected and who decides\n\n- Injured persons with covered asbestos-related conditions (as defined in s.3) can receive provisional damages and, if they later develop another covered condition linked to the same exposure, may pursue one subsequent award (ss.4–5).\n\n- The court (or a registrar, in relation to costs) has the discretion to make provisional awards, to decide whether a subsequent award should be made and how to account for the initial award and earlier legal costs when fixing amounts (ss.4, 6–7).\n\n- The practical payer will be the defendant or their insurer in the underlying civil action (the award is made \"in an action for damages\"). The Act does not itself create a new payer; it changes how courts may structure awards in existing civil proceedings (s.4 and the cross-references to applicable compensation and wrongs legislation in the note to s.4).\n\nWhy the Act exists (as stated) and how that interacts with costs and incentives\n\n- The Act’s stated purposes are to permit provisional damages for asbestos-related conditions and to make consequential amendments to certain compensation and wrongs statutes (s.1). Mechanically, the provisional-award structure lets a court limit an initial award (on the basis that the injured person has not yet developed further asbestos disease) while preserving a right to a top-up award if a linked condition later appears (s.4).\n\n- Costs and incentive trade-offs: provisional damages shift some future risk of further illness from the injured person to the defendant/insurer, because the defendant may be liable for a later top-up if the plaintiff develops another asbestos condition. The Act limits that exposure in two ways: (1) only one subsequent award is permitted (s.5); and (2) courts must consider prior awards when setting later awards (s.6), and must guard against duplicative legal costs in later proceedings (s.7(1)–(3)). These are mechanical limits on repeated or duplicate recovery.\n\nImplementation, compliance and evidentiary burdens\n\n- Practical implementation requires subsequent-proof of causation: for a later award the injured person must show that the later condition was at least partly caused by the same act or omission that led to the original action (s.4). That creates evidentiary and procedural work for later proceedings.\n\n- Compliance and administrative burden fall on injured persons (who must return to court to claim a subsequent award), defendants/insurers (who may need to manage reserves and defend a later action), and courts/registrars (who must assess possible duplication of legal work and previous awards when fixing amounts and costs) (ss.4, 6–7).\n\n- The Act gives judges and registrars discretion in how they apply these rules (for example whether to award provisional damages at all, how much to award later, and what legal costs are duplicative) (ss.4, 6–7). That discretion concentrates decision-making in the courts rather than in an administrative body.\n\nWho benefits, who bears costs, and where effects concentrate\n\n- The mechanism provides a concrete benefit to those injured persons who later develop an additional asbestos-related disease: they can seek a further award even after an initial settlement or judgment (ss.4–5). The cost of that potential additional recovery is borne by the defendant found liable in the action (or their insurer), subject to the legal and evidentiary limits the Act imposes (ss.5–7).\n\n- The Act interacts with existing workers’ compensation and wrongs statutes (the note to s.4 lists which statute applies depending on dates and circumstances of employment). That interaction determines whether a particular claim proceeds under a statutory compensation scheme or under the Wrongs Act, and therefore affects who litigates and how liability is determined in practice (note to s.4).\n\nTrade-offs and risks the mechanism creates\n\n- The Act reduces the finality of an initial award in cases where future disease remains possible, which may encourage injured persons to accept provisional settlements rather than hold out for a larger single award; it also creates the possibility of future litigation to establish causation and quantum for later disease (s.4).\n\n- The requirement that courts avoid duplicate awards of legal costs aims to limit windfall recovery by plaintiffs’ lawyers in later proceedings, but it places a fact-intensive burden on courts and registrars to identify and quantify duplicated work (s.7(1)–(3)).\n\n- The single-subsequent-award cap (s.5) and the court’s ability to have regard to the initial award (s.6) are mechanical constraints intended to balance future liability against fairness to injured persons.\n\nKey statutory references: purpose (s.1); definitions/exclusions (s.3); provisional and subsequent awards (s.4); single subsequent award cap (s.5); regard to initial award (s.6); costs rules (s.7); transitional operation (s.8)."},"kimi_summary":{"content_quality":"ok","complexity_score":3,"scope_assessment":{"changed":true,"description":"The original Bill (as evidenced by the long title in endnotes and repealed Parts 3 and 4) intended to also amend the Accident Compensation Act 1985 regarding proceedings for asbestos-related conditions and amend the Wrongs Act 1958 regarding dependants' claims for dust-related deaths. However, the enacted version (Version No. 004) shows these amendments were removed—Part 3 (sections 9-11) and Part 4 (sections 12-14) were repealed by the parent Act itself (No. 69/2008) before commencement. The surviving legislation is narrower, focusing solely on provisional damages for living claimants rather than the broader compensation scheme reforms originally contemplated."},"complexity_factors":["Short statute: only 8 operative sections across 2 substantive Parts","Minimal defined terms: only 4 key definitions in section 3 (asbestos-related condition, injured person, subsequent action, subsequent award)","Simple conditional structure: primarily 'if-then' logic without nested exceptions","Limited cross-referencing: only references to external Acts (Accident Compensation Act 1985, Wrongs Act 1958, Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013) in explanatory notes and purpose clause, not operative provisions","Straightforward transitional provision with single carve-out (section 8)","Repealed Parts 3 and 4 indicate original bill was larger but enacted version is streamlined"],"plain_english_summary":"This Victorian law helps people with asbestos-related diseases (like mesothelioma or asbestosis) get fair compensation through the courts. Here's what it does:\n\n**The core problem it solves:**\nAsbestos diseases often develop slowly. Someone might get sick with one condition (like asbestosis) but later develop a worse one (like mesothelioma). Before this law, if you sued and got compensation for your first illness, you couldn't sue again if you got sicker later. You had to gamble: sue now for the current illness, or wait and risk dying before getting any money.\n\n**What the law allows:**\n- **Provisional damages:** You can get compensated for your current asbestos illness *without* giving up your right to sue later if you develop another asbestos-related condition.\n- **One bite at the cherry later:** You only get one subsequent (later) claim if your condition worsens or changes.\n- **Fair costs:** If you do claim later, the court must consider what legal work was already done in your first case, so you don't pay twice for the same work (like proving who exposed you to asbestos).\n\n**Who it affects:**\n- People suffering from asbestosis, mesothelioma, asbestos-related lung cancer, or asbestos-related pleural diseases (but **not** people with only pleural plaques—benign scarring that doesn't cause symptoms).\n- Their lawyers and the courts handling these claims.\n- It interacts with workers compensation laws depending on when and how the person was exposed to asbestos.\n\n**Important note:** This law applies to court cases, not just workers compensation claims—it covers workplace and non-workplace exposures."},"summary":{"complexity_score":3,"scope_assessment":{"changed":false,"description":"Based on the limited content available, the Act appears to remain focused on its original stated purpose of compensating victims of asbestos-related diseases. No amendments or scope changes are identifiable from the metadata provided, though the version history indicates the Act has been consolidated, suggesting some amendments have occurred since it was first made in 2008."},"complexity_factors":["The document provided contains almost no substantive legislative content — it is essentially metadata and version history only, making detailed analysis impossible","Asbestos compensation law as a subject area can involve complex medical causation questions and multi-party liability chains, which would typically add complexity","Interaction with broader workers compensation, tort law, and insurance frameworks would normally add layers of complexity in the full Act","The score is kept low because insufficient text was provided to identify genuinely complex provisions, cross-references, or regulatory mechanisms"],"plain_english_summary":"## Asbestos Diseases Compensation Act 2008 (Victoria)\n\nThis Act creates a legal framework for compensating people who have developed serious diseases as a result of exposure to asbestos — a hazardous building and insulation material widely used in Australia before its dangers were fully understood.\n\n**Who does this affect?**\n- People diagnosed with asbestos-related diseases (such as mesothelioma, asbestosis, or lung cancer caused by asbestos exposure)\n- Their families and dependants\n- Employers, insurers, and businesses potentially liable for asbestos exposure\n\n**What does it do?**\nThe Act establishes rules and processes for how compensation claims are made, assessed, and paid out to victims of asbestos-related illness. Given that these diseases often take **decades to appear** after exposure, the legislation addresses the unique challenges victims face — including tracking down who was responsible for the exposure many years later.\n\n**Why does it matter?**\nAsbestos diseases are devastating, often fatal, and have affected thousands of Australians — particularly tradespeople, construction workers, and those who lived or worked in buildings containing asbestos. This law ensures victims and their families have a clear legal path to seek financial compensation without being blocked by typical legal time limits or difficulties identifying liable parties."}},"importantCases":[],"_links":{"self":"/api/acts/asbestos-diseases-compensation-act-2008","history":"/api/acts/asbestos-diseases-compensation-act-2008/history","analysis":"/api/acts/asbestos-diseases-compensation-act-2008/analysis","conflicts":"/api/acts/asbestos-diseases-compensation-act-2008/conflicts","importantCases":"/api/acts/asbestos-diseases-compensation-act-2008/important-cases","documents":"/api/acts/asbestos-diseases-compensation-act-2008/documents"}}